and the conscious mind. Jaynes provides additional references to the Biblical
evidence for the bicameral mind theory in his chapter, The Moral Consciousness of
the Khabiru (Jaynes, 1977:293-313).
(iii) Ancient peoples were non-conscious, did not introspect and were mentally
structured merely for survival.
Ancient peoples learned to speak, read, write, as well as fulfil the necessary
daily life tasks, occupational roles, including administration and complex decision
making tasks, all while remaining non-conscious throughout their lives. Being non-
conscious, Jaynes suggests that they never experienced guilt, never practiced
deceit, and were not responsible for their actions. They, like any other animal, had
no concept of guilt, deception, evil, justice, philosophy, history, or the future. They
could not introspect and had no internal concept of themselves. They had no
subjective sense of time or space nor did they have memories, as we understand
these things. They were non-conscious and innocent, guided by voices or strong
impressions in their bicameral minds, non-conscious minds structured by nature for
automatic survival. A common thread or syndrome united most oracles, sibyls,
prophets, and demon-possessed people; almost all were illiterate, all believed in
spirits, and all could readily retrieve or activate the bicameral mind. Today,
however, retrieval and expression of the bicameral mind renders the subject likely
to a diagnosis of schizophrenic insanity, unless it manifests as shamanism or
mythopoeic consciousness.
(iv) The automatic bicameral mind became inadequate to handle the imperative
to survive, and consciousness was invented.
Jaynes theorises that the automatic bicameral mind became inadequate to
handle the mounting problems threatening survival as societies became more
complex. Since the hallucinated voices were becoming more and more confused,
contradictory, and destructive, in order to survive, Jaynes believes that humans
were forced to develop a new way of thinking, a new mode which today we identify
as consciousness; a process that could solve infinitely more complex problems one
that involved the newly discovered process of human introspection. Humankind’s
thinking process was further enhanced by new thoughts and insights created by
comparisons achieved through metaphors and analogues. As the voices of the
oracles became confused and nonsensical, reliance and adherence to them
decreased and human beings began to contrive religions and prayers in an attempt
to communicate with the departed gods. Jaynes illustrates how the concept of
ron
(Ron)
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